The Worst of American Thrash Metal Vol. 2: Exodus - Force of Habit

Today we’re looking at the controversial “Force of Habit”. An album that split Exodus’s fan base in two.

Sometimes you can’t always pick on the big guys. As much as I would love to spend all day nitpicking every single mistake Anthrax, Megadeth, and the rest of The Big 4 until I run out of sticks to beat a dead horse, I am here to recognize failures across the board in American thrash.

Which is why, when I figured I was going to do this series at some point, you bet Exodus’ Force of Habit was going to be in it. By Exodus and thrash metal fans, it’s hit legendary status as being one of the worst albums in existence. Well I listened to Okilly Dokilly, St. Anger, and most of Six Feet Under’s discography, so I was pretty certain it couldn’t be that bad. I know some of you are probably thinking that one of the Rob Dukes era albums deserve coverage like this, but Force of Habit is just too legendary of a misfire to not tackle first. Rest assured, Exodus will be revisited in the future. But for now, let’s discuss Force of Habit.

Exodus is one of those weird bands who never really had a bad album. Their debut, Bonded By Blood is fondly remembered as a thrash classic, and even as the band goes in and out of hiatus, Exodus have proven that their success isn’t some random accident. Guitarist Gary Holt has more than proven himself as a giant in thrash metal, and Exodus’s recent albums have far surpassed their previous works, and are worthy addition to any thrash addict’s library. Gary Holt is such a fantastic guitarist that Slayer basically called him in as backup.

Note: Gary Holt recorded the guitars for Slayer’s Repentless, but didn’t do any of the songwriting because Kerry King didn’t want him to. The author would like the audience to be aware that he thinks this was a very stupid decision.

But even giants stumble on occasion. Enter the 90s, and enter Force of Habit. The album that made many quit Exodus… even Exodus themselves. But like many mythically bad albums, so few have actually sat down and heard it. Now that I have… I can see why.

Exodus isn’t a terribly complicated thrash band. Much like the other thrash giants, they tend to stick to what they’re good at, and if they have something different or unique about them, it usually doesn't come out until later in the group’s discography, once they become desperate, or realize they will never make the Metallica money as a thrash band so they might as well change it up a bit. For Exodus, it means that eventually, Exodus strayed away from thrash metal and gradually moved towards more repetitive, crunchy, groove metal. This means slowed down songs, down-tuned guitars and a much more repetitive song structure relying on catchy and aggressive riffing. The problem is these riffs aren’t catchy and barely aggressive.

Exodus gradually figured out how to do groove metal properly (see: Shovel Headed Kill Machine) and figured out how to blend both thrash and groove in a more organized way (see: Tempo of the Damned, Blood In Blood Out) but as 90s metal showed us, there is a right and wrong way to do groove metal, and Force of Habit is not the right way.

Over the course of just above one hour, Gary Holt shows us that he loves palm mutes and the first 3 frets on his guitar… and that’s it. The problem with Force of Habit isn’t that it’s a chaotic mess like Stomp 442 or St. Anger, it’s got one idea (and only one idea) and it stays on that idea the entire time. Holt’s riffs are more on the bluesy side, being a bit more easy going and repetitive than his usually more involved work. The result is riffs that end up sounding very samey and repetitive. That may sound like the point of groove metal, but when you play a Pantera album, every song tends to sound unique and at the very least, have a different tempo. Force of Habit seems to think the only thing you need to do to be a groove metal album is to be as repetitive and edgy as possible. But it isn’t just the riffs that sound repetitive, it’s the entire structure of the album. The songs usually go like this “begin riff, play riff for 2 minutes, change to different riff (don’t need any sense of flow here) play for rest of song, occasionally switching back to original riff to act as a chorus, then end”. It’s so bland and repetitive. I actually didn’t mind the opening track “Thorn in My Side”, but only because this sound was relatively new. Every track afterwards just feels like the band is shrugging their shoulders and saying “ahh well, we tried”. The riffs are samey, the choruses are samey, the solos have no life to them, there’s no sense of flow and progression anywhere, the songs even sound like they’re all going at the same tempo.

I might have let all of this (ok, some of this) slide if it wasn’t for the terrible mixing. I know thrash bands are kind of scared to not have bass in their songs after Metallica produced ...And Justice For All, but there is such a thing as overdoing it. The bass is cranked so high on this record that it creates that unfortunate underwater effect that’s a plague on so many bad records. The actual, you know, bass on this album becomes impossible to hear as a result, since he just can’t get past the rest of the band. This shitty mixing also helps to reinforce the repetitive songs as each song fills your ear with the exact same beats and bloated riffs for hours on end until the whole ends up as one big headache. And this may seem dismissive, but why is Souza even here? I’ve never really been a fan of his voice, but here he just sounds bored. There’s no thrill or energy behind his voice, and every song ends with him repeating the title of the track one hundred times over - just in case we didn’t get it the first one hundred times before.

I will say this in the album’s favor: I don’t get the complaint about this album having terrible lyric writing. Songwriting, yes, it’s bad and boring. Lyrically, I don’t find anything too out of place. The song topics may hit the typical thrash candidates (politicians are evil, war is bad, etc) but as for the songwriting being clunky and awful, I just don’t see it. I’d also be lying that the track “Architect of Pain” wasn’t a solid attempt at livening the album up a bit, even though Holt and everyone else involved should have realized that 11 minutes is far too long for any thrash song. I also want to point out the two covers on this album (“Bitch” by The Rolling Stones, and “Pump it Up” by Elvis Costello”) are the only times when the guitars seem to do something besides brood.

Force of Habit was a disappointment. Not because it was underwhelming, but because it was so incredibly boring. Stomp 442 or St. Anger at least have talking points. There was legitimate experimentation going on, a band in crisis, something interesting to at least mull over while listening to their putrid garbage. But Force of Habit is nothing but repetitive, bland, filler stretched out over the course of one hour. Is this Exodus’s worst album? As I’ve said, the Rob Dukes’ era needs to be looked over, but it’s certainly a strong competitor. In the grand scheme of thrash metal, it barely fits into that category long enough to really deserve any attention. So you should do what the rest of Exodus has been doing with this album for the last two decades and forget about it. 

Next time on "The Worst of American Thrash Metal" a look at the group many consider to be one of the best metal bands of all time. Hint: we're going to leave The Big 4 alone for a while.